Galicia to Glora: The Last of the Tribe of Danu

The spark that ignited the work, Galicia to Glora, came one night in Madrid during a concert by a traditional Galician group. Colm was suddenly captivated by a story one of the musicians told. It was about a legendary Galician king and a tower he once, allegedly, built from which the king would set out to conquer new lands. Hearing this story, Colm realised that there was a connection between ancient Irish legends and those of his newly adopted country; a new dimension to the legends he had read as a child; a dimension rooted in another land. In Galicia to Glora, an electrifying reimagining of a series of classic Irish legends, Colm preserves the fantastical, but uniquely draws the mythological and the historical closer and reveals a long forgotten link across time and cultures.

After he began writing the text and putting words to paper, a vision came to Colm’s mind of the mythical tower about which the Galician musician had spoken; it was that of a painting by the 16th Century Dutch master, Pietr Brueghel (the Elder), The “Little” Tower of Babel. This image opened up a train of thought. What if Breughel's painting was actually a painting of the Galician tower? And, what if other masterworks could, somehow, become the visual narratives to the rest of his story? So came the idea for the forty five sumptuous ink, water-colour and tempera illustrations and paintings in Galicia to Glora. Colm calls these original works his “humble acknowledgement of the universality of great works of art”. They are, of course, much more than that and they also provide an wonderful gateway of appreciation to the original artworks, which inspired them.

A native of Achill, (the largest Island on the Northwest Coast of Ireland), Colm grew up in an Irish speaking household steeped in folklore. Here on the majestic coast at the far western edges of Europe, in the heartland of Ireland’s most haunting and dramatic landscapes, his love of storytelling and painting was born. Over the years, Colm’s writing and art, while deeply influenced by Ireland’s history, tradition and, even, climate, have grown to encompass the influences of a life which has brought him to live in countries as diverse as Canada, Guinea, Spain, France and Sierra Leone. His creative work speaks to the contemporary as well as to the past, honing in on individual experiences of identity, displacement, conflict, co-existence and reconciliation, while exploring the essential relationships, (and sometimes thin lines), between myth and history, human suffering and emancipation and between conflict and freedom. These themes have been informed by his (other) life as a lawyer. Today, from his home in Madrid, he divides his time between, on the one hand, work in the area of human rights and, on the other hand, his creative endeavours. A hard working and prolific writer and painter, (making Galicia to Glora a work to collect!), Colm has exhibited artwork in Ireland and Spain, selling to private collections. He also writes poetry and, as well as a new series of children’s stories (inspired by his journeys in Africa), which he is currently illustrating, he has recently completed two feature length screenplays.

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